Talk:Drake equation

The Drake Equation
More than 50 years ago, astronomer Frank Drake came up with this equation to figure out how many intelligent civilization might exist in our galaxy. He considered the possible number of civilizations that might be capable of communicating, the fraction of stars with planets , average number of planets and how many could support life, how many would have intelligent beings who wanted to communicate , and how long those civilizations might last. Based on his assumption and today's knowledge, there could be a few thousand alien civilizations somewhere out there among the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy. INTELLIGENT 1234 (talk) 06:12, 11 November 2018 (UTC)


 * It all depends on the assumptions the person does when assigning a numerical value to each factor. That is explained in the article. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 16:34, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

An important summary as abstract to lead the article is missing
It should be stated as the first point in the article that his "equation" is only for RECEIVING signals from distant suns, and in no way tests for life, intelligent life, or interstellar civilizations in our galaxy or neighboring galaxies. This is true solely from the requirements he multiplies in his "equation".


 * Hello. The first sentence specifies that it is "used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations". That does it, right?  Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 16:31, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

There should be more criticism in the Criticism section
1. It should be made clearer that the "equation" was construed in an era where every civilization was outright expected to blow themselves up with an atomic bomb. This is untrue from experience.

2. The "equation" corresponds to one long list of logical impossibilities with an AND statement in between. It should be made clear that such a conditional will always yield a result extremely close to logically false, not because of what each condition constitutes, but because of the number of conditions. It should be investigated whether Frank Drake had a degree in the field of logic. It's likely, since it's just a few weeks of study at University, but it should be checked.

3. There should be insight into how well acquainted Frank Drake was within the fields of each of the conditions he construes his "equation" from.

4. It should be investigated whether Frank Drake has previously submitted mathematical equations for peer review, or if this is his first and only one. It should also be checked whether this equation has passed peer review.

Henrik Erlandsson 01:18, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The information, including criticism, has to be published by reliable sources; see: WP:Reliable sources. Personal assessments are not useful. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 03:17, 4 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Frank Drake has published many peer-reviewed articles in top journals, including a lot of math. To see some of them, just go to Google Scholar and type in "author:fd.drake" (without the quotes).  It's a little hard to take your criticism seriously when you make point (4) without checking for any of his other publications.   LouScheffer (talk) 14:44, 4 January 2019 (UTC)


 * I took a stab at it based on 2 semesters worth of astronomy simplified to the max. Anyone with any knowledge of the subject can easily verify all the additional subject matter. AKA The sky is blue does not need to be sourced from reliable sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:4040:5F0A:5500:ED19:AC53:A1A9:EFFC (talk) 20:16, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Mistake in the original estimates
I might be wrong but it is stated that R was 1 star per year in Drake's original formulation. However, all the other Wikipedia pages mention a rate of 10/year and other sources do the same : the BBC interactive page on drake equation and "information is beautiful" interactive page on drake and seager equations both mention a rate of 10 per year as the original estimate made by Drake. At first I made the changes to the page but then I thought that maybe I misunderstood something so I reverted it. Nonetheless, I do believe there is a mistake. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E0A:28F:41F0:60AD:8550:BAFD:B755 (talk) 21:21, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The cited reference supports your argument. I added one order of magnitude. Please review my edit. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 21:35, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

The 1/year comes from the book by Drake and Sobel. I can provide a copy of the page, if needed. LouScheffer (talk) 22:07, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I guess the book has priority over a paper still in arXiv. I have no access to the book, but I trust you. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 16:36, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I dug up my old copy of Drake & Sobel and scanned the relevant pages. See Drake's description of original values. This is on google drive, but I think readable by all. Could someone check? LouScheffer (talk) 21:50, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Wow, wow)) Can you scan that book and upload it to Libgen? There is no such book there, which is very strange, usually there are all books there. 2A00:1370:812C:C538:69FE:7932:D193:648D (talk) 09:39, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The link you gave worked for me, and led to this further page on google docs. All the estimates I saw there agreed with the figures in the article except, perhaps, $L$, which the article puts at "1000 to 100,000,000 years (which will last somewhere between 1000 and 100,000,000 years)" and for which the book says, "In the end, it seemed that the lifetimes of civilizations would either be very short — less than a thousand years — or extremely long — in excess of perhaps hundreds of millions of years." (a somewhat wider range, which would widen the range of the result correspondingly). I do note that the article cites a 1992 edition of the book; I'm wondering whether there might be some differences between editions here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:26, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Your link labeled "this" did not allow me access. Can you make it readable by all?  Thanks, LouScheffer (talk) 03:44, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Both links work for me, but I see on taking a second look at the source that I ought to have read further. The bit I wss looking at reads: "In the end, it seemed that the lifetimes of civilizations would either be very short-less than a thousand years—or extremely long-in excess of perhaps hundreds of millions of years." However, further down says: We've reached a conclusion,' I said. 'Our best estimate is that there are somewhere between one thousand and one hundred million advanced extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way.' (The values for the various factors in the equation have changed over the years, but this answer remains the most probable range.)", which agrees with the article. Sorry about the confusion. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:30, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Link still gives message "You need access. Ask for access, or switch to an account with access." So I sent you an email asking for access, but this will only work for me even if you do it. So please make it readable by all.  Google drive, at least, gives you this option when you create a a link.  LouScheffer (talk) 13:56, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I rcvd your email and replied, I think, OKing access. I struggle with access issues on google. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 15:40, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I also send you an email. 2A00:1370:812C:DE1A:E888:DD99:E1:5BB7 (talk) 02:46, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

NPOV
This article seems to go against NPOV. It's clearly pro-SETI and does not use impartial tone. The usefulness section is the clearest demonstration of this. For example, "The Drake equation is a statement that stimulates intellectual curiosity about the universe around us, for helping us to understand that life as we know it is the end product of a natural, cosmic evolution, and for helping us realize how much we are a part of that universe." is clearly a subjective statement, citation notwithstanding. Bored2020 (talk) 17:55, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ I've removed the sentence in question . It sounds like a personal opinion/essay, and I didn't see it in the source given (which was this ). With a current source it could be restored, but if so it should be presented as an opinion and attributed to someone, and not stated in WP's voice. I'm open to looking at other examples of this in the article. Geogene (talk) 20:01, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

L Years as a proportion of the age of the universe?
Obviously L is not actually the number of years. Why should earth years have anything to do with it. L is actually a very small number. Tuntable (talk) 01:17, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
 * As long as time is expressed consistently in the same units throughout the equation, then it doesn't matter what unit you choose. Geogene (talk) 01:26, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Unclear definition of "L" in the "Estimates" section
Under "Estimates", the article states:

"L = 1000 to 100,000,000 communicative civilizations (which will last somewhere between 1000 and 100,000,000 years)"

However, L is not the number of civilisations, that is N. In the text is notes that the original work suggested they would be numerically similar but should that not then be written as something like:

"L = 1000 to 100,000,000 years during which civilizations remain communicative. This roughly implies N = 1000 to 100,000,000 communicative civilizations at any given time." George Dishman (talk) 16:27, 2 November 2021 (UTC)